There's A Still In the Street Outside Your Window
by wereallmadinbatland
Summary: Warning: this is NOT going along with the comic book plotline. This is Nolan-verse (The Dark Knight Trilogy). Nora, a former career criminal, steps up to the plate and protects Gotham City in the Batman's absence. What happens when she is kidnapped by the masked man and falls not only for him but his right-hand man, Barsad?


In the inky darkness of a lavish apartment in the heart of Gotham City, sat a form with her defined features illuminated partially by the pale yellow glow of a street lamp just outside her window. Locks of black hair were sprawled across her face, and if anyone had been paying attention they would have noticed the way her full lower lip trembled and how her pale flesh glistened with tears. Nora Dawn Reever had given up her life as a career criminal due to the death of a man she cared something awful for - and yet there she was- now _she _was the one stealing away something so precious.

It had never been her intentions to worm her way into the back of her closet and retrieve a canister of black war paint and the suit her father had made for her. They were both items that caused her throat to close and her chest to heave as the memories they bore plagued her mind. Granted, she never would have dreamt in her most sadistic dreams that someone would unleash hell on her beloved city. It had begun with releasing the inmates of Arkham Asylum, and everything had been a downward spiral from there. The truth about Harvey Dent's murder had shaken the city to its very core and they had hardly been able to draw in a ragged breath before a hole was blown into the wall of Blackgate.

After that, hatred had spread like an epidemic and the air was thick with the blood of the corrupt; worse of all their _Dark Knight _had abandoned them when they needed him the most. These things had pushed the author to rim her light jade eyes with the black paint, draw a twisted smile on her lips and "thread" them so they would appear as if they were sewn shut, and slip modified brass knuckles onto her hands after she had suited up. The first night Nora had ventured onto the streets had been the hardest (although the nights that followed admittedly hadn't been much easier), and she'd nearly chickened out when the first crook crossed her path. His face had vaguely registered in her mind as someone she had seen on the evening news several years ago convicted of murder and theft.

_He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole under the Dent Act_, she inwardly recalled, _and he's coming at you. _The next thing that had registered in the orphan's mind was the sound of running water filling her eardrums and the sickening sight of scarlet liquid swirling in the pool of water that had collected in the sink. Nora's hands were stained with the blood she had been furiously attempting to scrub away, the same blood she would go on to find out belonged to a man that had been beaten to death in a back alley , although her efforts were in vain. After pulling the plug from the bathroom sink she had stumbled into her bedroom, shucked off her black combat boots, and peeled off the suit. Her tattered body had hit the mattress with the silent promise that she would deny everything that she had done that night until the next morning when she could reflect on her actions. She could reflect on the fact she had become her alter ego, Stitch,again, and reflect on the fact she had _killed _a man.

That had been three months ago. Over the course of that time the Gothamite had gone out each night and taken the life of one man or woman who had been released from their prison under Bane's command. The only difference was the fact that she hadn't numbly collapsed onto her mattress after the night's agenda had been filled, but instead stared into the same darkness that had fallen on Gotham as it had with her soul. It had become evident to the woman that she could no longer suppress the guilt that ate away at her that came with ruthlessly murdering fellow human beings.

In her right hand she held a syringe containing a large amount of morphine that could easily cause her to overdose. She had no rubber elastic tied around her bicep that had been pulled tight by being gripped in her mouth. The only preparation she had taken was to gently glide the tip of the needle under her skin and into a vein running through her left arm. For several minutes she gazed down at the substance in her hand and during that time she thought about all the evil that ran wild through the streets. Batman was no longer there to protect the innocent, and while her methods may have differed greatly from his, she had been the only one to step forward and fight back against the masked man.

Pulling the needle from her arm she threw the syringe across the room, the glass cracking as it came into contact with the far wall and the morphine oozing out lazily in streams. Nora didn't have the luxury of taking the easy way out. She stood from her seat beside the window and made her way towards the bed with a newfound determination to make the people believe that they could save themselves from the hideous fate forced upon them, and fell into a dreamless slumber as soon as her head hit the pillows.


End file.
